Captive
by milkmoth
Summary: He supposed she'd been caged up too long. UlquiHime.


_**Captive (Yes, No)**_

_a/n: _You know it's true: the UlquiHime bandwagon is the best place to be. xD Definitely review if you liked the fic. It came out a bit awkwardly, to me, but I liked the idea quite a bit and thought it was good enough to post. I hope you enjoy it, even though it's still a little rough.

* * *

Ulquiorra was her jailer.

Ulquiorra was charged with the tiresome task of keeping her captive. Guarding her or imprisoning her, however one wanted to look at things.

Tiresome, indeed.

(_Oh, don't lie; those glances, those touches, those words said between the expressions...)_

It started with a smile.

That was all it took. A smile. It was more than Ulquiorra had ever seen in Hueco Mundo, because everything else was leacherous, violent, or simply cryptic. When he himself smiled, it looked like something sad. Something half melancholy. Something dying (no, no… already dead). She was interesting. Yes, she was interesting. Ulquiorra was not acquainted nor friendly with his feelings, but he would say the girl gave him a sense of bemusement.

It intensified. A slap, another sidelong glance, held a little too long. A little too hasty in going to reclaim her. A little too disappointed that she had been snatched from her cell (his grip) at all.

Ulquiorra knew about human mental disorders where the prisoner would start to cling to her jailer for protection or emotional comfort, and he supposed this was one of those disorders. (_Too bad there are no such disorders in relation to Espada and their jailed.)_

He supposed, too, that it must have gotten lonely to be caged for so long.

And he supposed it was for those reasons, and those reasons only, that they began with talking in a civil, polite manner to more familiar conversation (mostly on her part) and then, later, a touch.

_(Oh, no, don't minimize the damage, it was more than just a touch…)_

A touch and a kiss.

Just one little touch, it couldn't be so bad. Just one little touch, like one little taste, one little smile.

(He really didn't know he liked her so much.)

"Um-?

And he turned, turned to see that she was holding his sleeve. His eyes, without blinking (he never blinked, one doesn't blink when one's dead) traveled down to her pink hand on his white sleeve. His sleeve was almost the same color as his skin. Because that's what one's skin looks like when one is dead.

And she gave a nervous choking noise and fluttered her hand back, as if she'd just touched something a _little _too hot. But gingerly, like she wanted to hold on to it.

He looked up at her again.

She looked down at the floor, and he could see her squirming inside, but her eyes soon met his. There was apprehension there, and he felt his nonexistent heart beat for a moment.

(It was odd. Things like adrenaline and hormones shouldn't affect a dead person.)

"I just wanted to say… I'm glad."

There was a sort of hanging silence in the room. The skin in her face became even pinker than it normally was, pink with a flush. The silence was there because she was waiting for an inquiry or reply, which she was not going to get because Ulquiorra had no idea how one would reply to such a question. The silence went on, and her expression became pained.

"I just mean I'm glad you're not dead. I'm glad that… that…" here her voice became so soft he could hardly hear. Not even in the silent, echoing room. "… Kurosaki-kun didn't kill you."

He was quaking inside.

He felt horribly unstable.

Instinctively, he was so _sure_ she felt the same.

_(No, no, __**no**__…)_

But without any outward sign of the ninth degree natural disaster inside him, he reached out.

And with one, just one, long, black-tipped finger, he touched her lips.

_Shhhh. _

The next day, he touched her neck.

Her check. Her collarbone.

The day after that, he touched the small of her back.

And every time, it was with fingers delicate and long and black-tipped, and far too pale to be touching flesh so alive.

_No, no, no._

That was what he thought.

But that was not the way he answered.

And before he knew it, his mouth was moving and saying, yes, he will.

An innocent girl would never ask for his death, never ask that he allow her to step to freedom over his dead body, but he supposes she isn't so innocent anymore, and that even the most innocent girls can be driven to betrayal

"I'll cry for you," she told him sadly, regretfully, shamefully, that night. He lets a black-tipped finger wrap around one strand of long, silky hair.

"Thank you."

He kisses her forehead, then kisses her lips.

He wants to know how much of it was real, but it's irrelevant.

His eyes close over.

(_She'd been trapped in there too long, caged up and rattling at her bars. But all along, he had been the one captive.)_


End file.
